{"id":27106,"date":"2025-04-14T21:59:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T19:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/?p=27106"},"modified":"2025-04-14T21:59:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T19:59:34","slug":"the-pastor-heard-a-knock-at-his-office-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/?p=27106","title":{"rendered":"The pastor heard a knock at his office door."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While working on a message the pastor heard a knock at his office door.<br \/>\n\u201cCome in,\u201d he invited.<\/p>\n<p>A contrite-looking man in threadbare clothes came in, pulling a goat on a rope, \u201cCan I talk to you for a minute?\u201d asked the man with his hat in his hand.<\/p>\n<p>Wordlessly, the pastor indicated the chair and the man sat down in it gingerly. The goat proceeded to sniff around the office.<\/p>\n<p>With one eye on the animal and one on the man, the pastor folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward, curious to hear the fellow\u2019s story, \u201cWhat can I do for you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy family is hungry,\u201d started the man. \u201cSo I stole this goat. But I feel that I have sinned. Would you please take it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCertainly not,\u201d said the minister.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen what should I do with it?\u201d asked the man.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGive it back to the man you stole it from, of course!\u201d the pastor explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI offered it to him, but he refused to take it. Now what should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn that case,\u201d the minister said, \u201cIt would be all right for you to keep it and feed your family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That seemed to settle things as far as the man was concerned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you for your help, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With a lighter step, he walked out of the office, leading the goat on the rope behind him.<\/p>\n<p>Later that afternoon when the minister returned home, he said to his wife as he walked in, \u201cI have got a story to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have something to tell you first,\u201d she exclaimed. \u201cSomeone has stolen your goat!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While working on a message the pastor heard a knock at his office door. \u201cCome in,\u201d he invited. A contrite-looking man in threadbare clothes came in, pulling a goat on a rope, \u201cCan I talk to you for a minute?\u201d asked the man with his hat in his hand. Wordlessly, the pastor indicated the chair [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27107,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27106\/revisions\/27107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}